Science has occupied almost all spheres of human life. Science is a body of knowledge, a way of thinking, a way of investigation and a way of experimentation in pursuit of exploring the nature. Science is both process and product. As it is a process, it consists of process skills which help in ending the scientific pursuits in products. Science education in the 21st century must be oriented to meet the challenges the entire population in promoting scientific literacy with process skills of science .it is a science education book which determine the science process skills of secondary school students. This book has been encompass the research study and divided into five parts: Introduction, Review of related literature, Design of the study, Analysis of data and summary, conclusions, discussions and suggestions. This book has included bibliography and index in last also.
Part one entitled as “Introduction” which included introduction, statement of the study, need of the study, scope of the study and objectives of the study. In introduction, authors had discus about the science, meaning and definition of science, importance of science teaching, science-A process approach, approaches to science teaching is factual approach ,conceptual approach ,modular approach and process approach and describe process of science and science process skills are: basic skills like observing, comparing, classifying, quantifying, measuring, experimenting, inferring and predicting and integrating process skills like controlling, interpretating data, defining operationally, formulating hypothesis & experimenting. This book has been emphasis on the study of science process skills of secondary school students. In need of the study author has been emphasis on the understanding of the process of the science as one of the major objective of science teaching for middle school students in India. The objective of the study is to identify the level of science process skills of secondary school students: scope of the study has been selected by gender (Boys & girls) locality (urban & rural) and management (government & private school) as the variables of the study.
Part two titled as “ review of related literature”. In this part author has been describe about significance and importance of review of related literature in the research study. As review of related literature, author has been encompassed the related study of science process skills of 1964-2002. In this part , author has been reviewed related studies of science process skills and also included study of level of science process skills in relation to gender, intelligence, achievement in science, attitude towards science, logical thinking ability, critical thinking ability, self concept, socioeconomic status etc. It has been also included development and validation of many “Test of Science Process Skills” as review.
Part third entitled as “Design of the Study”. In this part author has been defined the operational definition of the key terms as science, science process skills, private and government school and rural and urban school. As the variable of the study, author has been discussed science process skills with boys and girls, private and government and rural and urban secondary school students. The hypotheses of the study has been made regarding to above these variables. This study was conducted on 300 ninth class students by random sampling technique. For data collection self constructed “Test of Science Process Skills” was used.
In the fourth part “Analysis of data” the critical ratio were calculated to test the significant difference in the means science process skills of samples of each variable like boys and girls, private and government ,rural and urban secondary school students . In analyses of data author found that there was significant difference in the level of the science process skills in boys and girls and also in government and private school students but there was no significant difference in the level of science process skills of rural and urban students at 0.05 level.
In the fifth part “summary, conclusion, discussion and suggestions” has been given by author. Author summarised his study in very brief, included with nature of science process skills, objectives and hypotheses of the study. As the conclusion he found (i) the secondary school students possess a high level of science process skills (ii) the girls and the government school students are holding high level of science process skills than the boys and the private school students (iii) the rural students are holding a negligible high level of science process skills than urban students. In conclusion and discussion, author has been discussed of findings of his study in a very systematic manner and also given some very useful suggestions for the further research.
As a whole the book is very nicely printed with very clear and simple language. This book is very useful to science students, teachers, pupil teachers, administrators and science education researcher because secondary school students should acquire more sufficiency in all science process skills in scientific manner. This book is also play great role in enhancing the quality in science education. It also describes how to develop the science process skills among secondary school students? This book has been very useful for developing the knowledge about science process skills among students and teachers.
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[1] J.R.F., Department of Education, University of Allahabad, Allahabad.
